workplace harassment prevention guide

I guess I’m lucky never to have experienced harassment at work and I certainly never expect to at my current job—unless you count some gentle ribbing at the annual croquet tournament. But nevertheless, First Reference recently had its first mandated workplace violence and harassment training session to educate me and my co-workers on the company’s new mandated policies.

As a human rights advisor and educator I was encouraged to overhear this educational conversation about harassment at Tim Hortons. I was concerned however that part of the message this group was hearing was incorrect and misleading.

On May 3, 2010, the Ontario Ministry of Labour released new resource tools to help prevent violence and address harassment in the workplace in light of the new requirements under the Occupational Health and Safety Act that come into effect on June 15, 2010. The MOL workplace violence tool kit and accompanying guide are additional resources that assist employers in complying with these new requirements by helping them to:

Ontario’s upcoming occupational health and safety violence and harassment rules require that employers implement violence and harassment prevention policies. Manitoba and Saskatchewan also require OHS policies for both workplace hazards. When drafting or updating your violence/harassment policies to meet legal OHS requirements (e.g., Ontario’s Bill 168), are you creating individual policies or integrating your policies? That was the question asked in the most recent HRinfodesk poll. According to the results of the poll, out of 155 responses, 84 (~54%) respondents intend to comply to the letter of the law, while 71 (~46%) respondents have taken another approach by integrating both policies into one.

Recent comments

Is 36 months the new 24?Starlene Michel Perhaps employers should focus on Health and Safety, Human Rights, Good Faith, and Investigations instead of looking for shortcuts or complex contracts to cover their... – Feb 04, 6:17 PM